HOW TO SCULPT DRAPERY & FOLDS pt 2 tutorial basics fabric layers draping classical figure sculpture

Okay look so this lighting is pretty ideal. I have a light source here and a light source here and these create this shadow line right here. This is really ideal for trying to figure out where your form is at. A lot of people just like to have a light source straight on and what ends up happening is there's you know difficulty in seeing the form because you don't even see the nuances until it's like you know cast. So this light source is best. Okay I just want to go over a couple drapery sessions in drapery. You saw how I laid it on. There's a book here Edward Lane Terry Modeling and Sculpting the Human Figure. It's your little sculptor's bible. This one here I mean he goes through how to lay drapery, how to copy it, that type of thing. This book is chock-full of all kinds of information on sculpting but there is a section on drapery and there's also this one George Bridgman and he talks about the seven different types of folds. We have diaper, zigzag, pipe, half lock, inner drop, and spiral. So this book covers those types. Once you understand the nature of these types of folds then you really begin to understand what's going on with the drapery. You know on top of these books being your my resources, your hopefully resources, also consider Alphonse Mucha. Alphonse Mucha drapes his models and fabrics all the time and these aren't clothes they're just fabric. So he wraps them to create dynamic creases in the fabric which creates movement and he uses that because he's a he was a illustrator for products on the market. Cigarettes, soap, olive oil, even theater productions and then to the point where he was in the public landscape doing sculpture or not sculptures some sculpture but illustrations, paintings, murals in public buildings. So he just used drapery to help promote the figure. I mean look at this right it's just pulled tight around her and then he just puts costume jewelry on them and he has bouquet decorations that he would put on their hair. So he's a real source of inspiration for me and I mean if you learn anything from Alphonse Mucha he uses his artistic license. There's the old guy. Anyway they're gorgeous you get the idea. So that was my inspiration for this piece to move forward through here. So that's that's where I'm at with this and I have these turntables set up and they seem sturdy enough I hope that they hold but I have two turntables so I can keep looking at what I'm looking at. So yeah these calipers may come in very handy to see where points are if I need to and I found if you have a hard time with your clay sticking to plaster just put a little Vaseline on the plaster try to rub it in and wipe off any excess and the oil-based clay should stick to it. It has been for me. I like it. So let me make myself a little vulnerable here for a second. Let me make myself vulnerable. I'm going to give you a quick shot at my setup here. So I have a lamp here. I'm not sure if So this is where I'm at this at this point is a lot of back and forth turning. So I get fixed working on this spot making sure that my lines are proper. So when I go through these things and then let's just say from this knee to where this fold splits. I'm just gonna make a general reference here. So you know that that goes to say that I can either step this part up or this part but just to make sure let's just take it from the toe here to that spot. Okay boy even less favorable. Okay so I take that down a little bit. So let's just say from right about there there there. So I just want to show you what I'm doing here when I'm not on the camera. I mean I can't keep the camera on for this whole thing. I'm trying to figure out how to show you guys what's up without boring you to tears here. And when you're looking at it try to keep the figures in the same direction. So let's just say for example I have I want to know where this fold stops right here. So I'll get my calipers you could probably use a compass if you wanted to. Your compasses right so you can do that where that's going to be and right there and then I'd come over here and plant it the same way. So for me just eyeballing this I'm doing a fairly decent job but then when I move to the side here you see this right here this is not doing the same thing. So I must have got caught looking at it from some angle like this and was moving in that direction and I didn't take the time to change it and rotate it back to see that this actually needs built up a little more. And again I want to make sure that this angle is squared up. I can use this point that point points in the hair before I take my measurement. Yeah I can see where that needs to come out right there. So what I'm going to do is not turn it back to the front. I'm going to leave it on the side here and build it up. So this is what you do for portraits also when you're doing someone's portrait whether it's in person or with a photograph. Work with their profile. Set their profile. Have them sit there. Work from the side to build their face out. See I'm already going out too far. That's too thick. Okay getting there. So I can keep doing these reference points. Use the same reference points that way and then when I turn it back to the front I can already see that that looks better. So I just wanted to share that with you and this is just kind of like a little interlude and I'm going to start to speed this back up. So I just want to take a quick break from the sculpting here. This is going to be a very busy video as far as editing but I just want to take a moment to say that it's it's very important at least from the camera angle you know so you can see is that we really take visual measurements of and keep your hand consistent. I don't know where this is going to line up with the camera but you want to make sure that your angles are good and as you do you'll spin it and you'll see these you know you can just go across planes like that and look like you're just in the same ballpark and build from the side so that your eye when your eye is looking at the piece you can add on to the side to build it out to what your eye is seeing on this one. So that's the key. If you want to add some more stuff that's fine but make sure wherever you added it that you can turn it to that profile and see that it coincides and another thing you might want to do this one I keep turning around on the board it's not fixed but you could have a line here and a line here just to keep yourself always as parallel as you can and the last thing I want to mention here is be sure that you are looking straight down because you can go back through and you know lean in take a look straight down and then come back and look straight down and you'll see discrepancies you'll start to say like this here this is something I just noticed where your spine is well there's a crease that's just past that so I had the crease before it or at it so I took the over and then I could do a whole lot of adjusting and pieces just started falling into place and you can see that like this here has more of a curve from above even though it's a straight line this way so I can use that for example it's a straight line here but from above it's missing that curve. If there's an area that you want to dig into try to use a loop tool to get in there and the the surface is going to be like not finished at all but this is allow you to get in there and remove material without having to dig because when you use your thumb you're pushing the clay as you pull out and this you can actually cut it like an old Velveeta cheese slicer type and that works so rolling edges like when I apply a new layer I can use this tool and just kind of smear it over and then I can see a gap there and then I can add a little more to it and do a little more smooth that actually works in my favor a little bit because there's a gap so that's all I'm really doing at this point